Council for Research in Music Education

A Cross-Cultural Interview Study of Singaporean and US General Music Teachers'

“Pedagogical Creativity”
Author(s): Joseph Michael Abramo and Leonard Tan
Source: Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education , No. 214 (Fall 2017), pp.
41-61
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Council for Research in
Music Education

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/bulcouresmusedu.214.0041

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education © 2018 Board of Trustees
Fall 2017 No.  214 University of Illinois

A Cross-Cultural Interview Study of

Singaporean and US General Music
Teachers’ “Pedagogical Creativity”
Joseph Michael Abramo
University of Connecticut, Storrs
Storrs, CT
Leonard Tan
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore

A bstract
In this qualitative interview study, we explored the “pedagogical creativity”—the creativity teach-
ers employ in their generation and execution of curricula and instruction—of veteran and novice
general music teachers from the United States and Singapore. We prompted participants, 10 from
each country, to articulate their underlying philosophies through semistructured interviews. The
teachers discussed (a) a diversity of ways they were flexible; (b) varying degrees of embracing and
incorporating ambiguity into their teaching; (c) forming novel associative bonds to create curri-
cula, including incorporating the nonmusical identities of themselves and their students into the
classroom; and (d) the ways teacher evaluation and policy mandates did or did not affect their
teaching. Findings indicated that the veteran teachers were better able to articulate their processes
and had more experiences to draw upon. The teachers from the United States and Singapore dif-
fered in their attitudes toward incorporating other subject areas into their teaching, but little on
all other aspects of pedagogical creativity. We discuss implications to provide a fuller understanding
of how teachers and teacher educators may nurture pedagogical creativity.

T he C oncept of “ P edagogical C reativity ”

Researchers are in general agreement that creativity is a desirable quality in schools (e.g.,
Beghetto & Kaufman, 2011; Craft, 2003; Khatena & Torrance, 1973; Tan, 2016a) and
in work places (e.g., Trilling & Fadel, 2009; Tan, 2016b). The ability to think diver-
gently (Guilford, 1950) and metaphorically (Davis, 2004) and to form novel associative
bonds (Khatena & Torrance, 1973), among other traits of creativity, lead to educational
gains among students and increase in the quality of worker productivity. These abili-
ties are often described as “21st-century skills” or “21st-century competencies” (e.g.,
Ananiadou & Claro, 2009; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009; Trilling &
Fadel, 2009). These skills aim to equip students to meet the demands and challenges
of a knowledge society and globalized world. They have also been incorporated into

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

the educational curricula of many countries around the world, including in Asia and
in the West (Tan, 2016b; Voogt & Roblin, 2012). For example, in the United States,
the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (Trilling & Fadel, 2009) collaborated with the
National Association for Music Education to create the “21st Century Skills Map—the
Arts” (Dean et al., 2010), and in Singapore, the Ministry of Education frequently
emphasizes the development of 21st-century competencies through school music pro-
grams (e.g., Ministry of Education, 2014).
Researchers have applied this interest in creativity in schools and the workplace to
define and develop teachers’ creativity. Some researchers have suggested that creativ-
ity in teaching requires a perceptiveness and flexibility. Halliwell (1993), for example,
defined teacher creativity as “the ability to read a situation; the willingness to take risks;
the ability to monitor and evaluate events” (p. 71). Craft (1997) suggested that creative
teachers demonstrate “personal flexibility” (p. 83), or the ability to adapt and change
curriculum and instruction in the moment and throughout the year. Sawyer (2004)
described teachers’ flexibility in terms of structured improvisations, where teachers cre-
ate and adapt in the moment of instruction with specific final goals and intents in mind.
Beghetto and Kaufman (2011) suggested that teachers enact this flexibility and percep-
tiveness to negotiate the “gap between the curriculum-as-planned and curriculum-as-
lived” (p. 94).
In addition to flexibility, other researchers have suggested creativity is marked by
drawing connections to other academic subjects through metaphorical thinking and
novel associative bonds. Henriksen and Mishra (2015), for example, studied how teach-
ers form novel associative bonds by incorporating disparate ideas into their instruction.
In interviews with eight US National Teacher of the Year recipients and finalists, partici-
pants described incorporation of their personal interests into the classroom, including
music, art, yoga, dancing, gardening, and photography. However, the participants also
reported that current US policies focused on standardizing curricula for teacher evalu-
ative purposes impeded their creative efforts in the classroom. Other researchers have
also suggested similar restrictions (Craft, 1999; Dobbins, 2009; Hartley, 2003; Hayes,
2004; Prentice, 2000; Tomlinson, Little, Tomlinson, & Bower, 2000).
Others have studied creativity and combining disparate ideas in music education.
Through interviews and a review of teacher-created artifacts, Barrett (2007) found that
music teachers draw upon their “lateral knowledge” as they use their vast knowledge
of disciplines outside of music to create rich, interesting, interdisciplinary lessons and
curricula for their students. Abramo and Reynolds (2015) suggested that music educa-
tors develop “pedagogical creativity,” or the ability to exercise creativity in curriculum
and instruction. In a theoretical paper, they suggested that creative music pedagogues
“(a) are responsive, flexible, and improvisatory; (b) are comfortable with ambiguity; (c)
think metaphorically and juxtapose seemingly incongruent and novel ideas in new and
interesting ways; and (d) acknowledge and use fluid and flexible identities” (Abramo &
Reynolds, 2015, p. 37). These studies on teacher creativity point to the need to develop

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

educators’ creativity as teachers and curriculum writers. While education researchers in

music and education more broadly have noted the use of creativity in teaching, they
have not explored whether there are any differences between the creativity of early career
and later career teachers.
While teacher educators have tried to delineate the qualities and characteristics
of creative teachers, other researchers have suggested that “creativity” is not a mono-
lithic trait or process but is instead subject to individual, organizational, historical,
social, and cultural contexts. There may be individual processes that are creative and
novel to the individual but are not innovative within society as a whole. Runco and
Richards (1998) delineated between “big-C,” or eminent creativity, and “little-c,”
or everyday creativity. This distinguishes “creativity,” which is new and novel to the
individual, from “Creativity,” which is historically and genuinely new. Kaufman and
Beghetto (2009) nuanced this little-c/big-C binary by expanding it to a “4C” model.
They added “mini-c,” or purposefully meaningful creativity, and “pro-c,” or “the
developmental and effortful progression beyond little-c [creativity] (but that has not
yet attained Big-C status)” (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009, p. 5). In music education
research, Webster (in press) suggested using Kaufman and Behgetto’s 4C model for
assessing creative potential. These areas of research conclude that all people, when
engaging in complex tasks, engage some sort of creativity, but these creativities vary
in novelty and originality.
In similar aims to vary conceptions of creativity, some researchers have posited
theoretically and tested empirically the idea that there are different conceptions and
enactments of creativity between inhabitants of Asian and Western countries. They have
suggested that people from the West privilege innovative creativity, where radically new
and novel ideas are considered creative (Morris & Leung, 2010). These researchers argue
that, conversely, people in Asian countries view creativity as incremental, working within
tradition and enacting small changes. For these researchers, this creates and is created by
a set of oppositions in Western and Asian conceptions of creativity: (a) individual versus
collective and (b) novel and original products versus useful and appropriate products
(Morris & Leung, 2010).
More recently within music education, Tan (2016a) attributed differences between
Asian and Western creativity to differing underlying philosophical assumptions.
Informed and influenced by Confucian philosophy, he proposed the notion of “creatio
in situ or ‘situational creativity’” (Tan, 2016a, p. 95) as a philosophical resource for a
theory of creativity in instrumental music education. According to Tan, while Western
perspectives privilege creatio ex nihilo (i.e., “creation from nothing,” as documented in
Judeo-Christian conceptions of the origins of the universe), this is absent in Confucian
cultures, putting emphasis instead on creating within a situation. In addition, in
Western conceptions of creativity, geniuses are seen as creating outside of tradition,
rather than working within it. By contrast, Asian theories of creativity emphasize work-
ing within tradition.

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

Not all research on creativity in Asia and the West point toward these differences.
Paletz and Peng (2008) compared college students from the United States with Japanese
and Chinese students and found that Chinese students were more driven than the
students from the other two countries by desirability for novelty instead of usefulness.
However, the results are not always consistent; Leung and Morris (2010) found little or
no differences between Asia and the West. Westwood and Low (2003) suggested that a
host of influences mix with societal structures, making generalized distinctions between
Asian and Western creativities particularly challenging.
These bodies of research within creativity—creativity in teachers and music educa-
tors and difference between Asia and the West—when compared to one another, suggest
that music education researchers might pay attention to music teachers’ development
of pedagogical creativity as well as the differences in conception of creativity based on
geographic location and culture. This research also suggests that differences in Asian
and Western creativity may be evident in music teachers’ conception of pedagogical
creativity, although culture might be only one of many factors that might contribute to
differences in creativity from different groups. In addition, attention to a teacher’s status
as early or late career, while currently unstudied, may provide additional insight into
teachers’ creativity. In what ways, if at all, do conceptions of pedagogical creativity vary
between general music teachers (grades 1–6) in Singapore and the United States and by
career stage?

P urpose and R esearch Q uestions

We aimed to study the practices of elementary general music teachers’ pedagogical cre-
ativity as defined by Abramo and Reynolds (2015). Further, we wanted to distinguish
among teachers of differing populations (i.e., novice and veteran teachers and teachers
in the United States and Singapore). We, therefore, formed four categories—novice US
teachers, veteran US teachers, novice Singapore teachers, and veteran Singapore teach-
ers. The research questions were:
• How, if at all, do elementary general music teachers engage in creative peda-
gogy as outlined by Abramo and Reynolds?
• What differences, if any, are there in the practices and attributes between US
and Singapore teachers?
• What differences, if any, are there in the practices and attributes between vet-
eran and novice teachers?

M ethodology
Participants
We purposefully sampled 20 participants, creating equal representation among
four categories: US veteran, US novice, Singapore veteran, and Singapore novice.

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

Participants were elementary general music teachers chosen from acquaintances of

the researchers, recommendations from other teacher educators, and finally by partici-
pants themselves, in what is sometimes called “snowball sampling” (Creswell, 2013).
The US educators teach in four different states in the northeast, southwest, and the
south and represent urban, suburban, rural, private, public, and charter schools. The
participants also received their teacher education in differing institutions, including
alternative certification. Three of the 10 US participants were former students of the
US researcher. In Singapore, the participants teach in different locations within the
city-state, and all participants are public school teachers who received their teaching
certification from the sole teacher education university in Singapore. Eight of the 10
Singapore participants were former students of the Singapore researcher. Virtually
all US and Singapore teachers are natural-born citizens and educated in their respec-
tive countries; the exception was one veteran teacher in Singapore who was born in
Taiwan and trained and taught in Taiwan before undergoing another round of teacher
education in Singapore.
For the purposes of this study, we define “novice teacher” as an educator with
less than 5 years of experience as a full-time music educator. A “veteran teacher” is an
educator with 5 or more years of experience. While we used years of experience as the
sole criterion for making these distinctions, we consulted theories of teacher stages
to further distinguish possible characteristics between these two groups. The novice
teachers may be considered “apprentice” (Steffy, Wolfe, Pasch, & Enz, 2000) because
they are gaining confidence within the classroom. They may also be considered in
the “induction” and/or “competency building” (Fessler, 1992) and the “survival” and/
or “discovery” (Huberman, 1989) stages where they are becoming socialized into the
profession and experimenting and building a repertoire of instructional strategies,
methods, and materials. The veteran teachers might be considered in the “profes-
sional” or “expert” phases (Steffy et al., 2000), where they have gained self-confidence
and in some cases have made significant contributions to the development of their
schools. They might also be considered in Fessler’s (1992) stages of “continued
enthusiasm and growth” and/or “career stability” and Huberman’s (1989) “stabiliza-
tion” or “experimentation/activism” stages, where they have gained self-confidence
and either build upon or repeat effective strategies and techniques. Key to the dif-
ferences between novices and veterans is experience. The novice teachers are gaining
and experimenting with teaching practices that are new to them without a significant
repertoire. Conversely, the veteran teachers may continue to experiment; however,
they have accumulated a significant amount of strategies that they find effective.
While years of experience do not guarantee that teachers will be necessarily in one of
the stages Steffy et al. (2000) or Fessler suggest, these descriptions served as a frame
to begin to situate these teachers. Table 1 lists the participants’ pseudonyms and key
identifying information.

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

Table 1
List of Participants, Years of Experience, Country in Which They Teach, and a
Description of Community Where They Are Employed
Pseudonym Country Years of Experience Description of Community
Where Participant Is Employed
Tim USA 22 Affluent, suburban
Samantha USA 5 Middle class, suburban
Laura USA 3 Charter school, large urban
Katie USA 17 Rural, middle and working class
Jeff USA Less than 1 Poor, rural
Dale USA 2 Charter school, large urban
Marissa USA 2 Poor, rural
Natalie USA 12 Rural, working class
Jessica USA 13 Private school, affluent
Hope USA 2 Middle class, suburban
Ju Ying Singapore 13 Urban
Siew Kheng Singapore 10 Urban
Duoni Singapore 16 Urban
Li Ling Singapore 6 Urban
Teck Ghee Singapore 14 Urban
Ji Ching Singapore Less than 1 Urban
Jit Rui Singapore 2 Urban
Ai Ming Singapore 2 Urban
Siew Yee Singapore 3 Urban
Jia Jia Singapore Less than 1 Urban
Note: Because Singapore is a city-state, all schools are urban.

Data Collection and Analysis

We conducted semistructured interviews with the participants to understand their views
and teaching strategies and philosophies (Seidman, 2006). We initially used discussion of
their practices as a way to elicit their conceptions of pedagogical creativity. Discussion of
their practice lead to abstract questions, such as: “What does creativity in music education
mean to you? What does it mean to you to be a creative teacher? How should a creative
classroom be like?” In this way, we began with more immediate practices and then tran-
sitioned to philosophical conceptions of creativity. Interviews are valuable sources of data
where multiple perspectives to a research question or problem may be gathered (Yin, 2014).
Each participant participated in one interview that lasted 45 to 60 minutes. We
asked four fundamental questions based on Abramo and Reynolds’s (2015) framework
of pedagogical creativity: (a) How important is it to stick to your lesson plan versus
diverging from it to respond to your students? (b) How comfortable are you with mul-
tiple correct answers to a problem? (c) Do you ever incorporate other subject areas into
your music class? If so, do you have any examples? (d) Do you ever incorporate students’
other interests or your nonmusical interests into the classroom? Although we followed

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

a mutually created protocol—each in our own countries—we reserved the ability to ask
follow-up questions. The interviews were conducted entirely in English, including in
Singapore, where English is the official working language.
After the interviews, we transcribed the conversations and then initially coded the data.
We used a three-step process outlined by Saldaña (2012). First, we individually assigned
initial “codes” to begin to abstract and combine data. Next, we combined those initial codes
into larger “categories.” Finally, we joined them further into final “themes.” We then pro-
vided these themes and transcriptions to each other to check for interreliability of themes,
to modify these themes if necessary, to find cross-cultural similarities and differences, and
to generate further themes. To ensure rigor and trustworthiness in the data analysis, we
wrote individual journals and documented our findings through thick descriptions to lend
credibility to the study; follow-up interviews were also conducted with some participants
to clarify ideas or misrepresentations (Creswell & Miller, 2000). We obtained Institutional
Review Board approval in both countries for all research protocols and procedures.

T hemes
Data interpretation resulted in four emerging themes: teachers discussed (a) a diversity
of ways they were flexible in planning and adapting lesson plans; (b) varying degrees
of embracing and incorporating ambiguity into their teaching; (c) forming novel asso-
ciative bonds to create curricula, including incorporating the nonmusical identities of
themselves and their students into the classroom; and (d) the ways teacher evaluation
and policy mandates did or did not affect their teaching.

A Diversity of Flexibilities in Planning and Adaption

All participants discussed some sort of flexibility in their planning, although this flex-
ibility varied greatly among degree and type. Some participants reported diverging from
lesson plans during instruction because it allows them to incorporate students’ interests.
Timothy, US veteran, said, “The more I thought I had a good lesson plan the worse
it was in the classroom because kids don’t work like the way I [or other adults] think
through something.” Instead, he prefers that students structure the learning: “It’s almost
like, ‘where are [the students] going to take you?’”
Similarly, Dale, a third-year teacher in a charter school in a large urban area in the
United States who also plays as a rock and jazz drummer said, “A lesson is like a set list;
it changes.” He continued:
I see a lot of parallels between my music [rock and jazz] and my teaching. My vibe
is that you are ready for anything, even without a lot of preparation. When you’re
playing jazz drums you have to be prepared to play anything and the role of a pop
musician is to come up with stuff and try things out. And teaching is similar. It’s
exactly like the same thing you do on the stage. You have to be ready for anything
and you’re required to make your own things up.

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

Dale’s and Timothy’s views resonated with Siew Kheng, an experienced teacher
from Singapore who noted that while teachers should plan, they should also be flexible.
She noted enthusiastically that
I allow myself to go with the flow as long as the broad objectives are achieved.
Sometimes, inspiration comes, and I do not follow exactly. . . . I will allow myself
to listen to the pupils . . . when you have the inspiration, the flow is there.
For Siew Kheng, “inspiration” and “flow” tend to be effective in the more forthcom-
ing rather than inhibited classes, as active pupils offer more creative possibilities in her
music lessons (it follows that with passive classes, she tends to diverge less). In feeding
off the creativity of her students, she diverges from her lesson plans.
These deviations from preplanned lessons were not unfocused. The teachers stated
that it was important that these deviations were relevant and guided by the teacher. For
example, Laura said that younger students often do not know when it is appropriate
to introduce a topic: “I get a lot of ‘my grandma likes to—’ and you have to redirect
them. So, I don’t go where the students are when it’s not relevant.” Similarly, Siew Yee,
a Singaporean novice, stressed that she would “try to return to the basic concepts” if she
had to move away from her lesson plan.
While there were teachers who did diverge, others felt that diverging from lesson
plans in the moment was not advantageous. For the US teachers who said they did not
diverge often, the most cited reason was keeping multiple sections of the same course
“on the same track,” as veteran Norma worded it. For example, all classes of third
grade music might become misaligned if the teacher diverged too much from what
she planned. Contrasting Dale’s metaphor of a lesson plan as a set list that changes,
Katie described a lesson plan as a relatively fixed script: “Teaching is a performance. It’s
a script, and why would you change what works.” Similarly, Li Ling, a veteran from
Singapore, was less interested in diverging from the lesson plan. She pointed out that
“if you stray, maybe you don’t know the students well enough.” This was echoed by
Ju Ying, an experienced teacher who was taught and trained in Taiwan before moving
to Singapore. For Ju Ying, the more she taught, the sharper her ability was to predict
students’ responses. Like Katie from the United States, years of experience working with
students gave her the predictive ability to know “what works.” Although these teachers
tried not to diverge during the lesson plans, they were not inflexible. They revise lessons
after they teach in a process Katie from the United States and Teck Ghee from Singapore
referred to as “tweaking.” During instruction, these teachers note which strategies
worked and which did not and later revised future lesson plans.

Varying Degrees of Embracing Ambiguity

Similar to a diversity of flexibilities in teaching, the teachers described varying degrees
of embracing ambiguity. On what might be considered the more conservative side,
some teachers felt that they had clear curricula and concepts that they taught but that

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

there was some flexibility in how students were able to demonstrate their knowledge of
those concepts. Katie, US veteran, noted, “The best answers I get [are] from my kids,”
meaning that they often come up with more developmentally appropriate descriptions
of the concepts she aims to teach. She then takes these student-generated descriptions
and incorporates them into revisions of her lesson plans. Additionally, US teachers look
for multiple answers in their composition assignments and projects. For example, first-
year teacher Jeff said he purposefully tries to elicit multiple answers from students in
composing and improvisation.
Similarly, Singaporean participants ascribed to this position. For them, music
notation and musical vocabulary has unambiguously correct answers. For example,
novice Jia Jia noted that while composing may often result in different “answers,” she
nonetheless steered students toward certain responses. When asking students to com-
pose eight-bar ostinatos, she would explicitly instruct them to not end with shorter
note values (e.g., eighths and 16ths) to teach them about creating a sense of closure.
However, concerning vocabulary, among all the participants, she was least comfortable
with ambiguity. Jia Jia teaches what she sees as solid musical concepts like “ostinato,”
“canon,” expressive Italian musical terms, and conducting 4/4 beat patterns. Noting
that “it’s important for students to have model answers so to speak” to these concepts,
she expressed strong sentiments about having specific answers in her lessons. For some
teachers in the US and Singapore, they viewed knowledge in their curriculum as stable
facts, although students might have multiple descriptors of those facts.
While most teachers believed that multiple answers were advantageous, others
more deliberately incorporated ambiguity into their curriculum. These teachers viewed
truth as more ambiguous than the other participants. Samantha described how her
lesson on Saint-Saëns’s “The Aquarium” from Carnival of the Animals evolved from
didactically teaching the composer’s intent to eliciting students’ interpretation.
I said [to the students], “This [recording] is ‘The Aquarium’ and draw what you see
in the aquarium,” and kids all drew aquariums. They didn’t even hear. . . . So, I did
the lesson again [the next year] and didn’t tell them [the title]. I got ballerinas. I
got haunted houses. So the ultimate realization was “who cares if it’s an aquarium?”
They don’t really need to know. . . . It doesn’t have to line up with the [composer’s]
intent because I know that the students are listening . . . I hang the pictures up for
parent-teacher night. [Laughing.] The first time I had 50 pictures of aquariums
and I was like “what does this show the parents?” But, when I hung them up
the second time and titled it “What the Class Learned About ‘Aquarium,’” I put
“Aquarium” in quotations. . . . I think it was more of a learning experience the
second time around.
Samantha embraced “wrong” answers because she believed their ambiguity dem-
onstrated that students were thinking divergently, creatively listening, and forming
interpretations. She was proud of the students’ multiple answers and showed them to
parents when she met with them. Similarly, Duoni, an experienced Singaporean Head

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

of Music and Supervisor with a master’s degree in music education, also tried to elicit
“wrong” answers from the students. For Duoni, these “wrong” answers are “teachable
moments.” According to Duoni, even at a very young level, the students are ready to
discuss “wrong” answers with a fair amount of insight and depth. These teachers pur-
posefully chose to put students in situations where there were multiple answers because
they wanted students to form multiple interpretations.

Metaphorical Thinking and Novel Associative Bonds

All participants engaged in some form of creating novel associative bonds, including the
incorporation of other academic subjects, metaphorical thinking, and the nonmusical
identities of themselves and their students. However, while all participants exhibited
the formation of associative bonds, like the previous two themes, the degree of novelty
varied among the teachers.
Incorporation of other academic subjects.  All participants described connections between
music and other academic subjects. All the participants saw their teaching as broader
than simply educating about music, but they were divided about to what degree and
how to incorporate other subjects. As Laura described it, “You can’t separate music out
from culture and history.” All US teachers of younger grades incorporated movement
and picture books into their teaching, and they used the books as an avenue to teach
English language vocabulary. These same teachers also regularly employed dancing and
movement. Singaporean teachers did not discuss picture books, but Teck Ghee teaches
the William Tell Overture and Ji Ching teaches Chinese operas to learn about their plots.
Other participants incorporated aspects from other subjects. Timothy, US veteran,
includes video production in classes. Jessica, US veteran, incorporates her interest in
climate change and the environment into one lesson. Students listen to a composition
for orchestra by John Luther Adams and then create their own original music about the
environment to connect to their studies of climate change in science and art classes.
The most illustrative example of integration of other academic subjects was US veteran
Samantha’s creation of an interdisciplinary course for fifth graders that merged music
and art in a course she humorously named “Mart.” Along with a certified visual arts
teacher, she engages students in visual arts and music projects that reinforce each other.
For example, around the word “texture,” students would create visual art and music that
had varying texture and then compare the concept of texture in music and visual arts,
noting their similarities and differences. This was all embedded within inquiry-based
teaching. Experienced Singaporean teacher Duoni connects visual art and music. In her
elementary general music classes, she plays classical music, such as Tchaikovsky’s Waltz
of the Flowers, and asks students to draw responses to what they heard. The drawings
would then be framed and displayed in the school’s hallways.
Some of the US participants described expectations from administrators to incorpo-
rate language literacy or numeracy into their classroom. This was particularly prevalent for

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

novice teachers in schools that served students from poverty, including Marissa and Jeff in
high-needs schools and Laura and Dale in charter schools. While teachers make connec-
tions to other subjects, some of the US veteran teachers were reluctant to call their teach-
ing “interdisciplinary” because for them, perhaps unsurprisingly, the term had negative
connotations. Although Timothy regularly integrated video production into his classes, he
did not intentionally incorporate other subjects into his teaching because he felt that they
might too easily infringe upon music time. Norma, too, was not in favor of incorporating
other subjects: “I want to teach music, I don’t want to teach math.” Similarly, Katie was
ambivalent about teaching literacy in her music classes, and the US researcher asked her
whether it was required or she incorporated it on her own volition.
It’s 50/50 [percent]. A music purist would say, “This is my room and I should be
using my very small 40 minutes to just do music.” But it’s not reality. If I didn’t
have to? [Pauses, blows air through her lips.] I would still do it but I probably
wouldn’t worry about it so much. I wouldn’t worry, “Oh this observation is coming
up, I better include some reading and vocabulary.” But I’m perfectly willing to do
it. It makes me grow as a teacher.
Norma, Timothy, and Katie’s reticence is embedded within views of music education
and the politics of schooling in the United States. Too often, as Norma described, these
teachers felt that administrators and school policies expect music teachers to reinforce
math and language content and skills in music class, not valuing music as intrinsically
worthy of instructional time and possessing its own unique skills and content.
None of the Singaporean participants expressed such concerns. On the contrary,
they readily incorporated other subjects into their music teaching. They often used
music to teach math concepts (Duoni), English (Ji Ching), and Chinese (Li Ling).
Importantly, they used music to reinforce patriotic themes—something we, perhaps
surprisingly, did not find among the US participants. Ju Ying uses music to teach
about Singapore National Day and to “let students know about Singapore history,
how lucky they are now, how to be a good citizen.” Ai Ming used the song “There’s a
Part for Everyone” to stress the importance of working together to defend the country
on Total Defense Day. In fact, she went so far as to emphasize the need for indepen-
dent Singapore to defend itself by inviting pupils to role play the historic moment in
Singapore when the British surrendered to the Japanese during the colonial years.
Nonmusical identities and interests.  One specific example of forming novel associative
bonds was the incorporation of teachers’ and students’ nonmusic identities and inter-
ests. Participants from the United States were mixed on their use of students’ identities
in their work. All participants discussed students’ interests outside of instructional
time in order to build rapport. Those who taught the younger grades felt that students
were too young to incorporate their interests into the curriculum because the students
themselves were often unable to articulate their desires. Other US teachers were more
overt about incorporating interests into curricula. Veteran Samantha allows students to

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

write lyrics to songs. They write about “candy, NFL teams, and shopping.” Novice Dale
specifically searches out the media students might consume. “I do a lot of research on
what kids like. I go on the Internet and research the popular songs and shows so I know
what they’re listening to and watching and if I can use it.”
Timothy, US veteran, had the most expansive use of students’ interests in his
classes. In his semester-long classes, he engages in an inquiry project where students
make a video either for the day before the mid-year winter break or for the end of the
year. The class shows the video to the entire school and students who take the class are
aware of the project and look forward to completing it. On the first day of each class,
he asks the students, “What do you want the video to be about?” Students incorporate
stories about school and pieces of popular culture, such as television shows and movies
they enjoy. This, he believes, motivates the students.
Like their US counterparts, the Singaporean participants also varied on their use of
students’ identities in their teaching. Those who did were all veterans and overwhelm-
ingly spoke about using popular music in their general music classrooms, even though
they were prompted to talk about nonmusic identities and not popular music. However,
teachers saw this as an aspect of their nonmusical identity. For example, Li Ling begins
each semester by asking students which popular songs they would like to learn. As she
puts it, the purpose of music education is to “spark off their interests”; if students find
the songs interesting, they will engage in self-directed learning. Noticing that students
in her class enjoy beatboxing, Siew Kheng readily incorporates the technique in her
classroom. However, Teck Ghee, himself a popular musician who plays the guitar, warns
that while it is crucial to include popular music in the curriculum, it “cannot be the
only and dominant genre” used in the classroom, preferring instead to include music
from the classical repertory. Compared to the veterans, the novice teachers were much
less likely to consider their students’ interests. Ji Ching, who taught a mere 6 months,
simply said that she has not found a way to do it. Likewise, Jia Jia, who has less than
a year of teaching experience, rarely contemplates incorporating students’ interests,
though she does include popular music in the curriculum.
Similar to using students’ interests, all teachers from the United States shared aspects
of their personal lives to connect with students outside of instructional time. As Samantha
worded it, “You can’t be a music teacher without opening yourself up a little bit.” For
Norma, this was incorporating her love of contra dancing into her teaching. Katie makes
up stories about herself as a way to introduce material or transition activities:
Like the other day, I said, “You know what boys and girls, this weekend I baked a
pie”—I didn’t really—“and I needed to add all the ingredients. What ingredients
do you think I used?” And they give me answers and then we say them in various
rhythms.
The influence of being a parent was significant for Norma, Timothy, and Katie,
the three US participants who had children. This subtheme arose with each of the three

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

participants without specific questioning of parenting from the researcher. Norma said,
“Having kids changes your perspective on teaching. My kids like to imagine and play.
And now I incorporate a lot more whimsy, whereas before I had kids, I didn’t do that
as much.” Norma was able to use her experiences and make observations of children
outside the context of formal schooling to inform her teaching. Katie said, “Before I had
kids, I didn’t know what they were capable of. Until I had my daughter, I didn’t know
what an appropriate level of reading ability was for, like, a first grader.” Perhaps the
most striking influence of parenthood was Timothy’s experiences with his son, whom
he described as “gender fluid.”
Timothy: Watching my son grow up and making choices that would not fit
into the boy paradigm. . . . I remember thinking, he’s going to be different
than other boys and this is going to potentially be very painful for him at
times. . . . In regards to ambiguity, having a child brings a lot of things to the
surface and I’m okay with that.
Researcher: Has this experience and being a parent in general affected your
teaching?
Timothy: Yes, absolutely. The empathy I have for the children in my classroom
stems from my own children. Absolutely. . . . I think I was mean when I was
[a] younger [teacher].
While many participants from the United States shared their personal lives to connect
with their students, teachers from Singapore were less willing. This was evident especially
among the novice teachers, where all five noted clear divides between their personal identi-
ties and the music classroom. It is striking that in all interviews with the novice teachers,
their responses were directly and unequivocally “no.” Siew Yee explained that it was “their
[the students’] interests that matter more,” while Ji Ching simply taught what she had
planned without bringing her own life into the picture. Among the experienced teachers,
Teck Ghee expressed the clearest connection between his own interests and his music cur-
ricula. Like Dale from the United States who talks about his favorite television shows and
the rock band he performs in, Teck Ghee freely expresses his love of the soccer matches
he watches on TV and shared his experiences as a popular musician. Furthermore, he said
that as a popular musician with a love for rhythm, his music lessons were often rhythmi-
cally driven and included samba music, Latin instruments, and upbeat rhythms. Another
veteran teacher who connected her personal interests with her class teaching was Duoni,
who had a special love for drawing and often drew her responses to the music she played
for her students. The students would also draw their responses and had fun comparing
their drawings with those of Duoni’s.

The Hindrances and Affordances of Teacher Evaluation

and Accountability to Pedagogical Creativity
Some of the US participants discussed the restrictions and opportunities school,
district, state, and national policies and procedures had on their creativity. As noted

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

earlier, veterans Norma and Timothy were against required incorporation of other
academic subjects, including numeracy and literacy, and Katie was ambivalent.
However, the novice teachers’ reactions to policies and procedures were more posi-
tive. For example, novices Laura and Dale embraced teaching “character” and general
vocabulary in their music classes, which their charter schools required. Marissa felt
teacher evaluation systems give her ideas and structure to help devise curriculum.
However, contrary to his fellow US novices, Jeff was critical of the teacher evaluation
system in his school district, where his students’ performances had repertoire and
notation requirements that were judged by the high school teachers. He felt that this
system did not afford him the ability to let students choose their repertoire: “If [the
high school teacher] comes back and gives me comments that my literature is not at
a high enough level—I think it’s more important for students to pick [the music].”
Similar to their acceptance of incorporating other academic subjects, the Singapore
teachers did not discuss concerns with teacher evaluation.

D iscussion
The aim of this study was to uncover the underlying views, practices, and attributes of
pedagogical creativity as defined by Abramo and Reynolds (2015) in the participating
novice and veteran elementary general music classroom teachers (grades 1–6) we inter-
viewed in the United States and Singapore. Such an approach is important as creativity
is increasingly valued not just for its own sake but also as an educational good in the
global 21st-first century classroom (e.g., Voogt & Roblin, 2012). Unsurprisingly, the
veteran teachers were better able to articulate their processes and had more experiences
to draw upon. However, we found no strong differences in creative pedagogy between
veteran and novice teachers. The only differences we found in the reported creative
pedagogical practices between Singapore and US participants were their attitudes
toward incorporation of other academic subjects and their own identities into the
classroom. This perhaps supports research that suggests that there are no differences
between the West and Asia or that any differences are structured by more local contexts
or organizational structure (Leung & Morris, 2010; Paletz & Peng, 2008; Westwood &
Low, 2003). However, Singaporean novice teachers’ reluctance to incorporate identities
perhaps shows similarities to studies that suggest that Asian countries value collective,
as opposed to individual, notions of creativity (Morris & Leung, 2010; Tan 2016a).
These findings, though, are tentative because we interviewed the participants once and
did not observe their teaching.
We found a wider variety in the US participants’ pedagogical practices as compared
to their Singaporean counterparts. These differences are probably attributed to the
local and organizational context of the schools rather than overarching differences in
culture. For the Singapore participants, all teachers were educated in the only teacher
education university, and all schools they taught in were urban. Conversely, for the US

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

participants, there was a wider variety among the populations they served. For example,
Laura and Dale, the two US teachers who taught in charter schools, described their
schools’ mission of “academic excellence” in ways where students conform to expecta-
tions of character and conformity. Student creativity, in the sense of divergent thinking,
was not an aim of the curriculum. In the interviews, they both discussed professional
development that focused on these aims. Because of this focus, Laura and Dale did not
possess a nuanced vocabulary or an awareness of creative practices for their students
or for themselves. Conversely, veteran US teacher Timothy, who keenly focused on
creativity, worked in an affluent district where the music department purposefully used
creativity as a framework for the curriculum. His efforts supported and were supported
by the school’s commitment to student creativity and innovative teaching. Similarly,
Samantha’s school provided her the flexibility to create her interdisciplinary Mart class.
While the teachers might have certain dispositions for creativity, it appears that the
organizational environment in which they teach also influences the development of
their creative pedagogy (Fessler, 1992). It is possible that because those organizational
environments are more varied in the United States than in Singapore, the US partici-
pants’ pedagogical creativity was more varied.
Although we did not find major differences along experience and geographic loca-
tion attributed to culture, some teachers did emerge as being more creative and innova-
tive. Below, we discuss both the general trends found among all teachers as well as the
characteristics of these innovative teachers.

Creative Attributes of All Teacher Participants

All participants, even the novices, exhibited little-c and mini-c creativities; how-
ever, their creativity was not necessarily innovative or a fully developed pro-c creativ-
ity (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009; Runco & Richards, 1998). To use US participant
Timothy’s definition of creativity, all teachers were “doing something with what you
have.” All participants found ways to be creative in personally meaningful ways; they
responded to information from their students and environment, adapted materials, and
made associative bonds between music and other areas, including the lives of themselves
and their students.
The strongest finding of these practices was that all participants practiced some sort
of flexibility and adaptability to students. All teachers, as Katie and Teck Ghee described
it, “tweaked” lesson plans. Some teachers adapted in the moment; they followed the
“students where they wanted to go,” according to Timothy, or changed like popular
musicians change a “set list,” as described by Dale. Others wanted to stick to their les-
son plan as best they could, only to adjust after the act of teaching. They adhered to the
lesson plan like a proven “script” as Katie described it.
There are several factors that create these differences between teachers’ varying
degrees of adaptability. The teachers who were more apt to change the lesson plan in the

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

moment taught older grades, tended toward instruction devised mostly around projects
and discussion, adhered to constructivist learning theories, eschewed use of a sole music
teaching method, and had a view of epistemology in which there were multiple correct
answers to problems and questions and students had more input into the direction of
the lessons. While they tended to be veterans, there were some novice teachers who also
had similar attributes, but they did not possess the experience to successfully react in
the moment and, therefore, tended to adapt less. Conversely, participants who reported
that they were more likely to enact the lesson plan as written taught younger students
and/or more readily used direct instruction, were more likely to borrow from specific
music teaching methods, and, although they did not word it this way, were influenced
by behaviorist ideas. Perhaps surprisingly, while these teachers adamantly did not
describe themselves as following a specific teaching method, they reported borrowing
from methods, while those who diverged did not. Finally, they also viewed their cur-
riculum as possessing more stable “facts,” although students might have different ways
of representing or explaining those facts.
These findings might suggest that Abramo and Reynolds’s (2015) notion of flexibil-
ity can be further nuanced. The teachers in this study seemed to employ flexibility and
adaptability along a continuum. On the more predetermined side, the teachers follow a
script; they make adjustments, usually after instruction, to accommodate unanticipated
responses from students. In the middle, they guide students in small-group projects and
class discussions, leading the students in particular ways. Through this process, they
predetermine the ends but not the exact means to those ends. On the less predetermined
side, teachers improvise a set list; they respond to students’ concerns and feed off their
creative ideas. For some educators in this study—including the veterans who tended
toward direct instruction and had honed their crafts and novices who were still honing
their practices—these improvisations were more modest. For others, who were aimed
toward projects and discussions, their improvisations were freer. The teachers engage in
this pedagogical creativity on one or multiple points of this continuum.

Innovative Teachers
While all the teachers in this study exhibited little-c and mini-c creativities, they were
not all innovative or novel in their teaching. Creativity did not necessarily result in
innovation or the creation of unique pedagogies. For example, many US teachers
used physical movement and picture books. This exercised their creativity of making
connections between music and other modes to devise lesson plans. However, general
music teachers often employ these practices, and they are often taught in methods
classes in the United States. In contrast to little-c and mini-c creative teaching,
US veterans Samantha and Timothy particularly stood out as providing innovative
pedagogies. Samantha’s Mart class and Timothy’s inquiry-based video projects struck
us as more unique and may be considered pro-c or a more advanced and developed

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

pro-c compared to the other participants (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). Timothy
and Samantha adapted their lessons in the moment and followed the interests of the
students in the class, making them more uniquely tailored to the specific persons in
the room.
Six characteristics can be drawn from Samantha and Timothy that set them apart
from the other participants. First, they were veteran teachers, but within that veteran
status, they were in Fessler’s (1992) stages of “continued enthusiasm and growth” and
Huberman’s (1989) “experimentation/activism,” as opposed to “career stability” (Fessler)
and “stabilization” (Huberman). In other words, although they had amassed proven
strategies, they continued to experiment and gain new approaches. This contrasts with
the teachers who stick to a script and “don’t mess with what works,” suggesting Fessler’s
“stability.” Second, Timothy and Samantha’s pedagogies centered on student creativity.
Their instruction tended to be project-based, employing composition, improvisation,
video production, choreography, and other creative tasks. Because of this, their cur-
ricula were highly flexible. They “went where the students went,” as Timothy described
it. Third, these teachers exclusively taught older students—fifth and sixth grade. Older
students have more previous knowledge and independence, and this perhaps allowed
them to incorporate these more creative pedagogies. Fourth, their embrace of ambigu-
ity was a robustly held epistemological belief and structured their curricula. Timothy’s
description of his gender-fluid son as shaping his views of ambiguity and Samantha’s
description of eliciting “wrong” answers in students’ interpretation of “The Aquarium”
are striking examples of ambiguity structuring their teaching. Fifth, they employed
their “lateral knowledge” (Barrett, 2007) by making novel associative bonds in their
curriculum by connecting to other subjects, particularly the other arts. They also made
novel associative bonds by incorporating the identities of themselves and their students.
Sixth, they worked in schools where creativity was not impeded, in Samantha’s school,
and was celebrated, in Timothy’s school.
Some participants exhibited some but not all of these attributes. Norma, Dale,
Jessica, Jeff, Ju Ying, Siew Kheng, and Duoni exhibited some or many of these traits but
did not encompass all of them or to the degree that Samantha and Timothy did. Jeff,
US novice, is perhaps a particularly interesting case. He was the participant with the
least amount of experience in this study; we interviewed him during the ninth week of
his professional teaching career. It is possible that Jeff has some of these attributes but
does not have the experience to execute them. Also, as he noted in his opposition to the
teacher evaluation system, he felt organizational protocols inhibited him from teaching
more creatively. The veteran status and flexibility within their organizations, perhaps
unsurprisingly, provided Timothy and Samantha the ability to execute these innovative
pedagogies, something that Jeff lacked. Timothy and Samantha exhibited all traits of
pedagogical creativity as defined by Abramo and Reynolds (2015) with the experience
and organizational support to execute those traits in their teaching practice.

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 Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education Fall 2017 No.  214

Varying Attitudes Toward Incorporation

of Other Academic Subjects and Teacher Evaluation
We found differences between the US and Singapore participants’ attitudes toward
incorporation of other academic subjects and teacher evaluation. Henriksen and
Mishra’s (2015) study of National Teacher of the Year recipients and finalists in the
United States found that participants believed that current systems of teacher “account-
ability” hindered their abilities to be creative in their pedagogies and use innovative
and multidisciplinary approaches. Other studies found similar results among the gen-
eral population of teachers (Craft, 1999; Dobbins, 2009; Hartley, 2003; Hayes, 2004;
Prentice, 2000; Tomlinson et al., 2000). The findings in our study perhaps support
and extend these findings. Veteran teachers in the United States had similar views to
Henriksen and Mishra’s teachers. Timothy, Norma, and Katie in particular were weary
of standards like the National Core Arts Standards and teacher evaluation systems to
fully capture what they wanted to teach and what was valuable. They were also critical
of what they saw as invasive uses of interdisciplinary approaches, where music teachers
were required to teach writing, vocabulary, or other nonmusic content during music
classes.
Perhaps more surprising, however, was novice US teachers’ greater openness toward
these initiatives. For the novice US teachers, except Jeff as noted above, state and district
policies and requirements supplied scaffolding and parameters for these less-experienced
novice teachers who were not as adept at executing creative pedagogical strategies.
Perhaps ironically, accountability systems appeared to provide some structure for them
to be little-c creative.
The differences between the US novice and veteran teachers might suggest that
veteran teachers simply have more experience, finding these systems restrictive to their
creativity. However, it is possible that different systems have influenced how novice and
veteran teachers have learned to be creative. The veteran teachers initially devised their
teaching in a time when assessments of teacher evaluation were not as high stakes and
standardized, and they find current conceptions restrictive to already-established prac-
tices. Conversely, the novice teachers may be learning to be creative within—or perhaps
in spite of—new systems of teacher accountability. In other words, the novice teachers
have flexibly adapted to the current climate, which, in itself, might be construed as a
pedagogically creative act.

I mplications for P ractice

Practicing Music Teachers
All practicing teachers might strive to develop their pro-c creativity by emulating the
self-reported practices of the innovative teachers Timothy and Samantha. However,
adopting their practices carte blanche might be antithetical to the pedagogical creativ-
ity that all teachers discussed. Instead, if all teachers, even those in their first years, are

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 Abramo, Tan Singaporean and US “Pedagogical Creativity”

little-c and mini-c creative, but not necessarily innovative, they might, at least, begin
to see themselves as creative agents, not as technicians of unalterable scripts or methods
from others. It might also be advantageous for educators to seek out other interests and
make direct connections to teaching so that they may expand their capacity to employ
lateral knowledge (Barrett, 2007). In this light, they might choose professional develop-
ment opportunities that move beyond the topics of teaching techniques and current
educational research. They might seek out professional development that includes, say,
contra dancing like Norma or storytelling like Katie, even if the session or course is not
intended as teacher professional development. However, for this to be productive and be
true application of lateral knowledge, it is important that educators purposely connect
those different experiences to music teaching in novel associative bonds, rather than
simply experiencing them as diversifying experiences.
Some of the veteran US participants in this study as well as in other studies suggest
that teacher systems and policies restrict teacher creativity. However, the contradictory
views of the novice teachers complicate these commonly held assumptions. In this
regard, veteran teachers might emulate novice teachers’ openness to executing pedagogi-
cal creativity in current systems of accountability and adapting what they might see as
a rigid system into a space of more freedom.

A dministrators , P olicy- M akers ,

and M usic T eacher E ducators
Administrators, policy-makers, music teacher educators, and others who support and
educate practicing teachers might assist preservice and inservice teachers to engage in
the processes described above, helping them make direct connections between their
identities and experiences. Administrators, policy-makers, and teacher educators might
describe all music teaching as creative, suggesting that teachers never rigidly follow
ideas from other sources. They might also help preservice and inservice teachers strive
to develop their pro-c creativity and become innovative. In this regard, they might
frame teacher flexibility as occurring on the continuum described earlier and create
policies that encourage and recognize this type of flexibility in teaching. Administrators,
policy-makers, and music teacher educators might help inservice teachers enhance
their creativity during their veteran years by encouraging them to continually grow
and experiment, rather than fall into stagnation and frustration. They may do this by
explicitly describing teaching as pedagogical creativity. Finally, they might provide pro-
fessional development where educators are aided in connecting diverse experience to the
music curriculum to form novel associative bonds and employ their lateral knowledge.

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